Secret Cartography: Please Don't Shoot Me.

There are some rules you can obey. They can help you get around. They may keep you safe.
Pay attention to your surroundings. Square your shoulders; don't look like a victim. Don't show off money or expensive toys, like iPods. Look alert, don't appear nervous. Try to fit in. Stay away from small, poorly lit streets.

All the advice I've ever gotten means the same thing, at the end of the day: there is nothing you can do. None of these rules work. Nothing can keep you safe.

I live in arguably the most dangerous city in America. About two years ago, the murder rate spiked dramatically and hasn't abated yet. This is not inner city violence, segregated to "bad neighborhoods" and late nights. Philadelphia is a city of neighborhoods: Queen Village is another world from Kensington and neither are like Strawberry Mansion. And when something awful happened in a poor neighborhood, a dangerous neighborhood, it was okay. Not great, of course. But easily ignored. And it was easy to get around. Stay to the nice neighborhoods, with nice people, and you will be safe. Only the foolish, the suicidally naive and the badly intentioned ventured beyond such invisible and subtle boundaries, but now children and police officers have been shot in broad daylight. The unrest in the city is bold and shameless, never showing respect for the leylines that are class and privilege running in the streets.

When I was in second grade, a boy was beaten to death on the steps of my parish church, because some other kids felt like hurting someone badly.

My cousin was murdered when he was 21. He hadn't been a cop for a year.

For those of you with good memories: There was a shooting outside the house, my Fort, eight months ago. Zach and I were sitting on the same couch I'm posting from when we heard it.

There is no rule to follow. There's no direction to take. There never was any place safe.
I live in fear. Everyone does, I think, and I won't deny my own. Any place and time could be the wrong one. I make myself sick sometimes. I've lived here as long as I've been alive.
I am not making some tiny plea to stop the violence. I haven't nearly such an idealistic spirit. I'm just telling you, I feel lost now. I can't comfort myself with behavior rules and made-up boundaries. I can't map my movement by time or street. There's nothing to do, no secret cartography. Nowhere to go.